Clawson voters will decide in November whether to approve a millage hike to support garbage collection, which includes the annual leaf and yard-waste pickup programs.??The city is asking for a .848-mill tax hike, which would bring the garbage millage to the maximum 3 mills allowed by state law.??Mayor Penny Luebs said the city has seen a 20-percent decrease in revenues because of property value declines over the past five years, though those values rebounded by nearly 1 percent in the last year.??“For the past few years we have pulled money from the city’s general fund to pay our garbage bill,” she said.??Officials had to use $55,000 from the general fund last year to support garbage collection costs and expect to spend $72,000 more next year.??The garbage collection millage five years ago generated $862,000 annually. Because of property value devaluations the same millage yielded nearly $200,000 less last year.??Meanwhile, expenditures for trash collection were about $70,000 more than the city got from the garbage millage.??If voters approve the millage in the Nov. 5 election, the owner of a $100,000 house with a taxable value of $50,000 would pay up to $42.50 more a year in taxes.??However, City Manager Mark Pollock said the city would not levy the full millage amount the first year if it is approved.??“Next year we would need about .65 mills of the millage we are asking for,” he said.??The millage increase would raise about $260,000 annually for garbage collection if the full amount was levied, Luebs said.??If the millage fails, the city may have to eliminate yard-waste collection and possibly the curbside leaf pickup Clawson does in October and November, Pollock said.??It costs the city roughly $110,000 a year to collect yard waste through its garbage contractor. The leaf pickup program costs $150,000 annually.??“Any decision to eliminate leaf pickup would have to be made by the City Council,” Pollock said. “It’s a political issue because we have so many trees in Clawson.”??If the garbage millage is approved the city wants to increase its recycling program with the extra revenue the tax hike would provide.??The city would provide property owners with 90-gallon recycling containers similar to large garbage containers. The larger recycling containers would allow what is called “single-stream recycling,” which would allow residents to put all recyclables in one container without having to sort them.??Recycling saves communities money. Clawson is one of 12 communities that belongs to the South Oakland County Resource Recovery Authority, the regional trash consortium.??SOCRRA pays member cities money based on the amount of recyclables collected in their communities to offset garbage collection costs. Last year, Clawson got $38,000 in recycling rebates from SOCRRA, Luebs said.??“I want to educate our residents about recycling, especially our businesses,” she said. “The more we recycle, the more money we get, and there is less garbage to collect that we have to pay for.”